


Not So Perfect Timing

by titanialioness



Series: Perfect Timing [2]
Category: The Guild Codex: Demonized - Annette Marie
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 3 Spoilers, Don't be afraid, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Not Fluff, Nothing goes into detail just implied, Robin POV, Zylas POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25886851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titanialioness/pseuds/titanialioness
Summary: What if things hadn't gone so smoothly? A darker collection of Perfect Timing oneshots/drabbles.Currently Includes:1. Yanked into the summoning circle2. Kidnapped by Claude
Relationships: Robin Page/Zylas et Vh'alyir
Series: Perfect Timing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878502
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	1. Dragged into the Summoning Circle

**Author's Note:**

> hey friends, I ended up splitting up these drabbles into two separate works in the same series. I didn't want the darker stuff to taint all the fluff, so... here you go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taming Demons for Beginners - CHAPTER 11
> 
> If Travis hadn't interrupted Zylas yanking Robin into the summoning circle...
> 
> Content warning for major character death

His black, starving, dying eyes lifted to mine.

Then Zylas tightened his hold and dragged me into the circle.

The movement shattered my paralysis. Gasping, I scrambled for purchase on the smooth hardwood floor, but even in his weakened state I couldn’t hope to match his strength. He hauled me across the silver inlay like I was a sack of flour.

I crumpled into a tight ball, instinctively protecting my vulnerable head and neck from the predator who had dragged me into his cage. But he merely yanked my arm, pulling me straight. His other hand gripped my chin with bruising strength as he forced me to look up and meet his gaze.

He laughed—a low, husky sound of dark amusement. “What does your blood look like, _payilas?_ ”

My entire body trembled. A sob broke from my throat. “Zylas, please—”

“I have heard that _hh’ainun_ blood is the finest flavor,” he murmured. He tilted my head to one side, baring my throat. Then he leaned in, close enough that I could feel his hot breath brush my skin.

When his nose grazed the vulnerable skin of my neck, panicked adrenaline surged through my system once again. My free hand scrambled at his face, pushing and yanking his hair and clawing. My flailing knees and legs tried to kick free, but every hit against the demon’s torso felt like kicking a brick wall.

His sharp canines bit into my neck. I screamed, but the sound was cut short as he tore my throat out. Hot, sticky blood poured down my chest and seeped into my sweater. I went limp as the room spun, as I gasped for breath, as my vision dimmed.

“Guh! Disgusting,” Zylas spat, hacking out my blood. When he dropped me, I hardly felt the jarring impact of my body crashing to the hardwood floor. “A stupid rumor. _Hh’ainun_ blood takes like metal.”

My fingers twitched. I couldn’t move. Some weak, distant part of me knew he’d bitten into my carotid artery. I’d be dead in less than a minute.

“But I will take your heat, at least,” the demon purred. “And your bones will make fine weapons.”

The pain had disappeared. I wheezed for breath and felt nothing—just numbing, empty cold. The room had darkened to near black except for the smoldering coal of Zylas’s glowing eyes. 

When he spoke, his hollow voice echoed as if from far away.

“I will kill them thanks to you, _payilas_. And I will laugh at them as they die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAHAHAHAHA I'M sORRY I'M JUST LAUGHING SO HARD PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS ONE SERIOUSLY
> 
> okay but real talk, early series zylas is in survival mode. clearly that comes to change, but if he thought killing robin would give him a chance at survival, i think he would have taken it. its part of what makes his character development since then so juicy ;)


	2. Held Captive by Claude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped - CHAPTER 19
> 
> If Robin didn't hear Zylas say "trust me" while they were captured...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, i deserve death for this. 
> 
> Content warning for rape/noncon. nothing goes into any detail at all, and all responsible parties meet a deserved end :)
> 
> requested by Bingo. i think i lost some comments while deleting/moving chapters around so.... i'm sad, please leave more comments again, i love you all <3

The first time Zylas et Vh’alyir found himself trapped within a summoning circle, it had been a death sentence. He had never imagined the second could be a nightmare far worse.

Zylas’s eyes flicked around the room, assessing the situation. A basement. The same he and Robin had been in moments before. No windows to escape. No light for energy. Only the trap door unless he blasted another path. The three abjuration sorcerers. Claude. Nazhīver somewhere—not here, but close.

And Robin, restrained in a chair one leap away. Her mouth gagged, her wrists bound.

He locked his gaze on her. Panicked. Afraid. He could smell her pain, thick in the air.

 _Vayanin_ , he thought, trying to project some semblance of comfort. But she could not hear him. She could never hear him.

Claude folded his hands behind his back. “Zylas of the Twelfth House, you will accept a contract with me.”

A tiny, despairing sound rasped in Robin’s throat, but Zylas held himself still. He did not react, not even when the summoner gripped a handful of Robin’s hair and yanked her head with enough force to make her whimper.

Demons did not care for _hh’ainun_ —especially not a contractor. These _hh’ainun_ could not know any different. They could not guess. Zylas held himself still, the appearance of one bound by _vīsh_ to protect a girl he did not care for.

Hundreds of plots for escape spun through his mind. Of course Claude would want a contract. It was the way of things here, with _hh’ainun_ . Zylas did not know why no _vīsh_ had bound him to Robin’s contract—he had little understanding of the way of _hh’ainun_ contracts. But if no _vīsh_ bound him to Robin, then no _vīsh_ would bind him to Claude.

“I don’t know the extent of your contract’s protection clause, but we can certainly find out,” Claude went on, strolling around to Robin’s other side. 

_Don’t listen to him, Zylas,_ Robin’s voice begged.

Zylas’s jaw flexed—the only reaction that slipped past his stony expression. He drew in more molecules of heat, plunging the circle’s temperature to freezing. One chance to strike, to kill. It would not be wasted.

The summoner paused. His head canted in a thoughtful way. “Should we start by inflicting pain? Making her bleed? Or should I let the boys have her for a few hours? I trust you’ve been in the human world long enough to know what they plan to do.”

_Zylas, don’t—_

His gaze flicked to Claude, then back to Robin. He stared, his eyes narrowing as if the words were a physical thing he could shoot at her.

_ Vayanin, I have a plan _ , he said, thinking each word with as much clarity and force as he could manage. Without breaking his gaze from Robin, Zylas addressed the summoner. “I agree.” 

But again, Robin did not hear. Her face twisted with panic. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dampening the rag that gagged her.

_No, Zylas!_

Claude hesitated, then chuckled. A crooked grin splashed across his face. “That was easier than I expected. You have an excellent contract with your demon, Robin.”

Robin’s face pinched with determination. It was unfair, the way her thoughts cascaded over him as naturally as rain from the sky. She was remembering Red Rum. She was remembering dislocated joints, blood down her fragile neck, terror and dizziness and pain, so much pain. 

Zylas dug his claws into the basement cement, steeling himself to keep from flinching as she recalled in vivid detail each slow, agonizing pop of her fingers.

_ I have a plan _ , he told her again. _ Trust me. _

“Now, my dear, you will give your demon permission to enter into a contract with me.”

Zylas already knew Robin’s answer. He felt the resolve like a physical manifestation as her presence swirled around him. She would do as she had on the docks. She would refuse to release him. She would let herself be hurt.

All because she thought he could not refuse, because she was the only one who could protect him from enslavement.

 _Say yes_ , Zylas begged across the distance. So close. So close, and yet impossibly far. _We promised, vayanin. An ally does not do stupid things and die._

But she did not hear. His words did not reach her. Would Claude be suspicious, if he spoke out loud? But he had to tell her. She needed to say yes—to not be so stubborn, so self-sacrificing.

Zylas opened his mouth. “Do what he says.”

Robin froze. Shock, sharp like ice, cut across her expression. Her pain reverberated through Zylas’s mind as she gaped, horrified and incredulous as if she could not believe he would suggest such a thing. As if he had betrayed her, somehow, by telling her to back down. To give up.

_Zylas …_

“Say yes.”

_I can’t—_

“Do it!” he snarled, his glower locked on her. “Agree, Robin!”

Her entire body trembled as she sobbed. But even terrified, she was stubborn as always. Resolute. Determined to protect him from Claude in this only way she could.

 _Trust me_ , he begged into the void between them. _Trust me, please._

The hypocrisy of it rang hollow in his chest.

Of course she could not hear. Because he did not trust _her_ to hear.

It seemed so insignificant a thing. What did it matter why her face grew red when he came near? What did it matter if she was afraid, if she was disgusted, if she despised him?

What did it matter when her life was in danger?

He had done her so much wrong. He had been forceful, cruel, selfish. He had bullied her, he had terrified her on purpose. At times, he had wished her dead. If she held that against him, it was deserved. 

But that did not matter. He tried to convince himself of it. Even if she hated him, even if she wanted to be rid of him forever, it did not matter. It should not have mattered. Not when her life was in danger. Not when it was nothing but petty insecurity that kept him from his duty—his promise to protect her.

He trusted her. She, who had saved his life again and again, who had risked herself for him again and again. A partner, an ally. A friend. He had never had a friend, but he wanted to call her that.

He trusted her with so much.

But fear, twisting and dark, tightened around his chest and coiled in his gut. If Robin glimpsed into his mind, she would see everything.

She would know the savage piece of him that was violent and bloodthirsty. His selfishness, his brutality. She would know his secret, that no _vīsh_ sheathed his claws. And she, who was so soft, so kind, would hate him. Fear him.

She would know how often he thought of her. How he was weak for her, how he made stupid decisions for her, how he longed for her in ways she did not want.

She would know this was his fault. She would blame him for this terror, this torture, when the truth could have changed everything.

It should not have mattered.

“Last chance to take your demon’s advice, Robin,” Claude said, his mouth downturned like a man inconvenienced. At her responding glare, he sighed. “All right, Saul. I’ll be back in an hour to check for progress.”

It happened just as Eterran had said.

They stripped her. They painted her. And then Zylas witnessed a part of the human world beyond his worst nightmares.

At first, Robin tried to comfort Zylas as if he were the one in need of it. She lied and said it wasn’t so bad, she promised him she wouldn’t give in, she assured him that she was strong enough to resist for however long, even as she screamed and cried.

When Claude returned, she refused to surrender her contract.

 _I won't let Claude have you,_ she promised. _I’d rather die._

A few hours in, she began to mentally beg him. For help, for protection, for something. Just a whisper of an answer, just a single word of comfort. She stopped fighting back against her tormentors. She stopped shouting and screaming.

 _Zylas, help me,_ she whispered. _I don’t know what to do._

Her raw throat could hardly form words, but still, when Claude returned, she refused to surrender her contract. Again and again, she refused.

Then her voice stopped entirely.

Where he had once felt her presence—her sweeping curiosity, her sharp humor, her stubborn determination—he now felt nothing. Only cold emptiness, like she had locked herself away from him.

Claude was experienced with breaking points. When he returned to the basement for the sixth time, he looked almost smug. Expectant. He knew, as Zylas did, that it was over.

Saul, panting, wiped sweat from his forehead. He stepped away, clearing a space for Claude, and turned toward some corner of the room to drink from a bottle. The other _hh’ainun_ had disappeared upstairs for food and rest—with the torture lasting so long, they had begun to operate in shifts.

Claude stopped a foot from Robin. “Well, Robin? Change your mind yet?”

A long pause.

Then she nodded her surrender.

“Ah! Wonderful.” A wide grin split Claude’s face. “A shame we had to go through all that hassle, isn’t it? Well, let’s not waste any more time.” 

Opening his grimoire, the summoner chanted an incantation before listing the terms of the contract. Zylas hardly paid attention. He was plotting.

The twin sorcerers were upstairs and oblivious. Saul had exhausted himself. Claude had let down his guard, become arrogant. 

None would escape his wrath.

***

Zylas was not _īnkavis_ , but these deaths he enjoyed giving.

The moment he was freed from the _kaīrtis vīsh_ , he sliced Claude open from stomach to throat. A fast death, giving him no time to summon Nazhīver or any other demons at his command.

Saul followed moments after, his jaw ripped out so he could not cast vish. This death did not come slowly. Zylas tore off the parts of him that had touched Robin and left the old man to choke slowly on his own blood. The twins, when Zylas found them in the house above, found similar fates.

When he was certain the house was clear from danger, he returned to her.

“ _Vayanin_?” he murmured.

She had not moved, had not reacted to the slaughter of her tormentors. She lay on the floor. Her bare back was to him, covered in bruises and cuts. The reek of her pain and fear saturated the air, leaving him dizzy and furious and trembling.

“ _Vayanin_ , I have killed them. They cannot harm you anymore.”

Zylas moved toward her slowly, cautiously. Freezing terror unlike anything he had felt before—more chilling than an _īnkav_ ’s screams, an _ū_ _drash_ ’s claws—clenched his gut. He wanted to run. To hide in the infernus, to disappear into that cold and empty prison.

But he stepped closer. He crouched beside her. “Robin?”

He pressed a gentle fingertip to her shoulder.

She flinched, her entire body spasming away as if his touch were acid. She closed in on herself. She buried her head against her knees and squeezed tight as if she could disappear, too.

Zylas yanked away. The urge to flee rushed through him again. It was his fault. He could have told her. If he had told her about the contract _vīsh_ , she would have known. She could have played along. She would be safe, unharmed.

He swallowed it back. Standing, Zylas swept his gaze across the room for something to cover her bare body. There was a blanket folded across a chair in the far corner. It was dirty and stank of damp things, and he would likely find something softer in the apartment above. But that would mean leaving Robin alone, and that he could not do.

He used _vīsh_ to clean the blanket, then draped it over Robin’s tiny shoulders. So small, his _vayanin_. He knelt beside her again, not at close as before.

“ _Vayanin_ ?” Zylas said, his voice soft. “Do you want the _vīsh_ to make pain less?”

For a long moment, she did not respond. For a longer moment, Zylas thought she might never again. But then she nodded—a tiny, muted movement that he might have missed if he were not so utterly tuned to her every breath and heartbeat.

He cast the _vīsh_. When the tension in her shoulders drooped, he allowed himself a tiny spark of relief. Then he ran his hovering hands across the length of her, careful to avoid contact as his _vīsh_ sought out injuries. None of what he found would threaten her life, but he healed it all anyway—the raw skin around her wrists, the bruises along her sides, the cuts and scrapes. He cast cleaning _vīsh_ for the paint too, which crumbled off her pale skin like dust.

When he could find no more, he sat back on his heels. “I have healed you.”

As he said it, he heard the half-lie sour his own words. He could repair the bruises and cuts to her skin. But no _vīsh_ could heal the damage done.

A long silence lapsed between them. Zylas ached to comfort her, to hold her close, to make her feel safe, but he did not think she wished to be touched.

“Robin,” he said into the quiet. “Tell me how to help you.”

She curled tighter.

“I’m sorry.”

The words were barely audible. Her voice was so weak. He had healed the damage to her throat, but he could not heal her thirst. She needed food, water, warmth. The comfort of a familiar place, of a friend she could trust and rely on.

Her shoulders rose as she sucked in a breath, and then she rolled to face him. Blue eyes flickered to him, then to the cold cement of the basement.

“I thought I’d be stronger,” she went on, her voice rasping and trembling. “But I…”

Zylas crouched forward on his palms. The basement concrete was cold, so cold against his skin. “You are strong. This changes nothing.”

He inched one hand closer. An offer.

Her blank gaze stared at it, impassive. Slowly one arm untangled from the tight ball of her body and closed the distance. Her hand, so icy and small compared to his, slid across his knuckles and squeezed in a crushing fist around his fingers.

Zylas scooted closer. His free hand shifted forward, enveloping her cold fingers in heat. 

He wanted to hear her thoughts. He wanted to feel her gentle presence in his mind. He wanted to comfort her, to make her feel safe.

Gently, Zylas tugged on her hand. “Let me take you to a warm place.”

Robin nodded and let Zylas tug her to a sitting position. As soon as she was upright, she threw herself into his arms and pressed her face against his neck. He froze, caught off guard, before winding his arms around her back.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” she whispered, her shallow breaths dancing across his skin. “Don’t you hate me?”

Zylas’s arms tightened, squeezing her closer so that she was sitting on his lap, cradled in his embrace. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. If she showed the slightest discomfort at being clutched so tightly, he would let go. But he did not have words to express how much he cared, how “hate” was so far from the truth. He could only hold her fiercely, gently, reverently, and hope that she understood.

“I could not protect you. I failed you,” he replied. He clutched her tighter and fought to hide the waver in his voice. “It is you who should hate me.”

Protect her. That was his one job, his one responsibility in this world.

Her small fingernails dug into his shoulders, dragging him closer instead of pushing him away. “Stupid demon. I could never hate you.”

Truth in every word.

Robin’s body relaxed in his arms. Exhausted by her ordeal, she drifted to sleep, nuzzled tight against Zylas’s torso. He counted each breath, each heartbeat, feeling wordlessly relieved. 

What did it matter why her face turned red? She did not hate him. She could never hate him.

Tomorrow, he would tell her the truth of their contract. He would tell her everything—his fears, his mistakes—and he would not stop until they uncovered the secrets of their mental connection. Because Robin, alive and safe in his harms, was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zylas POV is hard. i think i could have done better, but... there you go.
> 
> I actually choked up while writing this........ and i'm still sad when i think about it. sorry!!!!!!!


End file.
